Nature Friday: The Springs of Florida, 3rd edition

by Pineapple Press • 5th January, 2018

Not far from Lafayette Blue, along the Suwannee River, another major spring system can be found in the Wes Skiles Peacock Springs State Park, one of Florida’s more beautiful spring sites where its blue pool is almost hidden within ancient floodplain forest. This spring park has two major springs, a spring run, and six sinkholes, all in near-pristine condition. About 28,000 feet (8.5 kilometers) of underwater passages have been explored and surveyed by cave divers within the park, making the Peacock system one of the longest underwater cave systems in the continental United States.

The acquisition of Peacock Springs by the Florida park system is of special significance to divers. Recently renamed after Wes Skiles, one of Florida’s foremost underwater cave explorers, the cave was once notorious for trespassing “commando dives” that would occur even when the spring was privately owned and closed to divers. It is also known as a killer spring for the 47 divers lost in its maze over the years. With diving in Peacock’s cave system now monitored and restricted to certified cave divers, it’s no longer the killer spring it once was, but its legacy remains in the minds of those who dive here.

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